Back in November 2009, I wrote about Matt Homann's use of a novel "You Decide Invoice" in his legal consulting practice that he suggested lawyers might want to experiment with. Homann's invoice states:

The rules are simple: you pay us what you feel we were worth to you. You decide, no questions asked. The only rule? We want to know why you paid what you did, and how we could have done better.

Homann stated that he had always received at least as much as he expected to receive, and usually more than he would have charged if he had established the price up front.

In May, a Minnesota estate planning lawyer named Alex Bajwa decided to give this a try for a month with what he called "name-your-own-price attorney fees." Here is the video he made offering this to the world:

On the Lawyerist blog Wednesday, Bajwa provided an update on his month-long experience with this form of billing. In short, he says, his faith that people would pay a fair amount was in all cases confirmed.

Bajwa writes that he promised himself that even if a client decided to pay him nothing he would accept it, but happily he never had to deal with that. To the contrary, while most of his NYOP clients paid less than what he would have normally charged them, Bajwa says that he was satisfied with all of the payments his clients decided upon and was "pleasantly surprised" on more than one occasion. He says he also received invaluable feedback from his clients on why they decided to pay him the amount that they did.

Bottom line: Bajwa's experiment worked well for him. He was paid for his work, he received a good bit of publicity, and he has already seen a nice increase in referrals from his NYOP clients.

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A Minnesota Lawyer's Experiment With 'Name Your Own Price' Fees

Back in November 2009, I wrote about Matt Homann's use of a novel "You Decide Invoice" in his legal consulting practice that he suggested lawyers might want to experiment with. Homann's invoice states:

The rules are simple: you pay us what you feel we were worth to you. You decide, no questions asked. The only rule? We want to know why you paid what you did, and how we could have done better.

Homann stated that he had always received at least as much as he expected to receive, and usually more than he would have charged if he had established the price up front.

In May, a Minnesota estate planning lawyer named Alex Bajwa decided to give this a try for a month with what he called "name-your-own-price attorney fees." Here is the video he made offering this to the world:

On the Lawyerist blog Wednesday, Bajwa provided an update on his month-long experience with this form of billing. In short, he says, his faith that people would pay a fair amount was in all cases confirmed.

Bajwa writes that he promised himself that even if a client decided to pay him nothing he would accept it, but happily he never had to deal with that. To the contrary, while most of his NYOP clients paid less than what he would have normally charged them, Bajwa says that he was satisfied with all of the payments his clients decided upon and was "pleasantly surprised" on more than one occasion. He says he also received invaluable feedback from his clients on why they decided to pay him the amount that they did.

Bottom line: Bajwa's experiment worked well for him. He was paid for his work, he received a good bit of publicity, and he has already seen a nice increase in referrals from his NYOP clients.